|
We make camp our first night. Miranda and Landroval are awake during the first watch to hear a disturbance farther off in the dark. We go over quietly to discover four men and a girl. It sounds like they're lost. We talk to them a little, Landroval is suspicious, but sleep has no effect on them! They turn out to be werewolves that we dispose of easily.
Next day, we're starting to close in on where we think the army should be. We find the remains of several men -- apparently they were sliced into tiny tiny bits by something. We follow a blood trail to a cave and discover the lone survivor. He tells us of the demon spider with swords for arms (bebelith) that killed all his companions, and then we let him take Zephyr (Dorn's trusty horse) back to Ashenbinford. We continue to the north, trying to stay far from the woods and far from the road and traveling VERY cautiously. Was that something moving in the woods, etc. We continue that way until dusk, when we begin to see the fires of the enemy's camp up ahead in the distance. Some of us start up a low rise so that we can see the army, when something huge and dark comes over us and blots out the stars. We get back down to the bottom of the hill, and a huge Bebelith jumps out from the other side of the hill and tries to web us all! Well, that didn't work, but anywho, after a good bit of hacking and slaying (meanwhile Beren is taking account of the army and their distance), we manage to overcome the demon. We take stock of our wounds, and Beren reports his finding: maybe 2000 folks, 500 horse (3 of those light, 2 heavy), and some really big tents. Looks like a lot of the main fighting force is conscripts, or peasants who have been forced into fighting. Miranda takes her own "special" look around and sees some siege engines, two more of the spider-demons, and then gets in a fight with an owl. Our party jumps back on its horses (Gwaihir and Landroval share a warhorse since they weigh the least and we're down one horse) and ride off at breakneck speed. We make it back to Ashenbinford without incident and report. While we were gone, the people of the town made a lot of progress on digging their moat, covering it with brush, spikes in the bottom. After a short night's sleep, we join in planning for the coming battle. Kord, Eldritch, and the others are in town, while the Harpers are still about a day away. So we while away the hours... Dorn talks Kord into wanting to go to Scarsdale with us... Landroval trades his +1 ring of protection to Norster for a +1 mace of heavy defending, with the added influence of Phae (whom Norster takes a liking to). There is some talk of "cream puffs," and Phae agrees to see Norster again later. She sees the advantage in having a mage as a friend, I suppose. Later, two large dragons come in with riders: one blue and one red dragon. Turns out the blue dragon is Katib, and his rider is some woman with black spiked leather armor and a Kergen-type helm. The red dragon is Vladimir (that priest of Tymora in ruby armor) and he was carrying the Lady Celeste and Lady Ellen. So that's all good. Also during this time, Dorn asks Eldritch to identify some armor he found (it was +3 armor of thieving), and in return, he agrees to find Drake in Scarsdale, who is a smuggler and possible slaver on the ship Sea Turtle. Eldritch gives Dorn a piece of paper with instructions and how to find a certain tome that Drake has that Eldritch wants. Miranda wants to learn Drow at this point so that she can go to the Underdark and enlist their aid. So she makes a bargain with Katib: he will teach her Drow the "fast way" if she will take this little book and learn from it (some kind of psionic instruction book). So then we have to figure out how to get down there. The closest entrance is the one we fell into on our first night out of Shadowdale, and that's a full day away, and it's night time right now, so that would take too long. We don't really know of any other openings in the area, since the Drow tend to close them up and make new ones. So, Miranda contacts Denarn (the drow she saved and brought to "justice" at Ashenbinford) and asks him to see if he could get a group together. He's very surprised but says he'll do what he can. Other than that, the only other stuff that went on was the night before the battle: there were some Love Scenes at the Inn. Dorn tries to get Miranda drunk and pick her up, to no avail; Norster tries to get busy with Phae; Kord takes a liking to Miranda when he discovers she speaks Minotaur; then Miranda says she has to decline Kord's offer because of the interest Dorn has shown in Kord (whoa!!). Unfortunately, that last comment was in Minotaur, and no one who spoke it would tell Dorn what it meant for fear of the Big Sword, although he finally does bully it out of a nearby fop who also speaks minotaur. |